Chickasaw County Captive

by Paula Graves

  And she had Kristen, whether the stubborn detective was ready to admit it or not.

  Hannah stayed with Sam a little longer, distracting him with chatter about all the local gossip and goings-on he’d missed during his years away from Gossamer Ridge. Of all his brothers and sisters, Hannah seemed the one most wedded to their hometown, to the beauty of the mountains and the bounty of Gossamer Lake.

  When she’d fallen in love with the cowboy cop who’d saved her life when her Wyoming vacation had gone horribly wrong, there had been little discussion about where they’d end up once they said “I do.” Riley had sold his property to his friend Joe Garrison, loaded his two horses in a trailer behind his truck and headed south to Alabama and a new life with his bride.

  Sam wished he could tell Riley what he was doing, he reflected later after Hannah had left. Hell, he wished he could tell Kristen. Lying to her about the text message had bothered him a hell of a lot more than keeping it a secret from the rest of the police. She’d put herself on the line for him and Maddy, more than once. She deserved his trust.

  She deserved the truth.

  But he couldn’t tell anyone what he had planned. Not until he had Maddy safely back in his arms.

  CARL MADISON GOT INTO the passenger seat of Kristen’s Impala and reached for the seat belt. The dashboard clock read seven o’clock on the nose.

  “The perimeter’s in place.” Carl told her. “We’re using tracker teams who know the lay of the land. Burkett won’t have a clue they’re there.”

  “He’d better not,” Kristen answered, her neck already beginning to ache from the unrelenting tension. After passing most of the afternoon working up background information on Stanhope Burkett, she was worried that Sam’s decision to go it alone might have been the right one after all.

  For one thing, Sam’s nemesis was a former St. Louis police officer who probably knew quite a bit about setting traps-and avoiding them. He’d quit the force not long after his son’s death and had spent most of the past ten years off the grid, if the lack of a paper trail was anything to go by.

  For a while, he’d popped up here and there, speaking to antiwar groups about what he called the “Kaziristan cover-up”-officers getting away with “friendly fire” murders of the enlisted by blaming the victims. But that paper trail had gone cold four years ago after the embassy siege in Kaziristan had changed public sentiment in favor of more military involvement in the area, not less.

  The most recent mention of Stan Burkett she’d found was the one that troubled her most, however. The FBI had noted in passing, on a report regarding possible antimilitary activity among some of the more anarchistic antiwar groups, that a man named Stanhope Burkett had been offering survival training to some of the groups for free.

  There was no telling where Stan Burkett was keeping Maddy or how easily he might see through Carl’s carefully positioned perimeter. She had no idea what he’d do if he spotted the trackers or suspected the police were watching.

  And worst of all, Sam Cooper was thirty minutes away from walking right into the middle of the whole mess.

  She glanced at the clock again. Five after seven. Time seemed to be creeping.

  “You holding up okay?” Carl asked.

  She nodded. “Just worried.”

  “You’ve grown attached to the kid. And her father.”

  She didn’t answer, her mind full of the reasons she’d given Sam for walking away. With Maddy in danger and Sam putting his life on the line, she wasn’t nearly as sure now that she was doing the right thing. What if she was turning her back on her best chance at happiness? At a real family?

  “Carl,” she said aloud, “what do you know about my mother’s condition?”

  Carl gave her an odd look. “Her condition?”

  She forced the words out. “Her madness. Why did she go crazy? Was it a genetic condition?”

  He hesitated a moment. “I thought you knew.”

  She turned to look at him. “Knew what?”

  “It was part of her court proceedings. They assessed her condition to see if she could be treated.”

  She looked down at the scar on the back of her hand, which glowed faintly in the light from the dashboard. “I’ve never read the case file. I guess I was afraid to.” She forced herself to meet Carl’s gaze. “What was wrong with her?”

  “She had encephalitis a couple of years after Tammy was born. You must have been around eight. She’d have been in the hospital a week or so-do you remember?”

  She nodded. That had been a couple of years after her father had left the family for good.

  “The encephalitis apparently caused irreparable damage to the part of your mother’s brain that controlled her impulses.” Carl’s expression was gentle. “She probably started losing her mind immediately, a little at a time.”

  Kristen felt her whole body begin to tingle as relief washed over her like floodwaters. Encephalitis, not genetics.

  Carl reached across the car seat and touched her cheek. “I thought you knew, kitten. Have you been worrying all this time that you’d turn out like your mama?”

  She blinked back tears, her throat constricted with emotion. She just nodded.

  “Oh, baby.”

  The radio crackled. “Team Two, in position.” A second later, Team One repeated the call-in.

  Carl looked at Kristen. “Game on.”

  She nodded, still trying to process what he’d told her about her mother’s condition. She wasn’t going to go mad the way Molly Tandy had. And whether or not she could be a good mother was up to her alone.

  It changed everything, she realized. The life she’d thought she could never have was a possibility once more.

  But not if something happened to Sam Cooper or his daughter.

  BELLEWOOD MANUFACTURING’S Gossamer Ridge mill had been out of business almost ten years, and as abandoned buildings do in a small town where nothing exciting ever happened, the old mill had fallen prey to vandals and thieves. Sam spotted the building’s timeworn, graffiti-riddled facade as soon as he rounded a curve in the packed-gravel track that had once been the mill’s main drive.

  He had parked his Jeep a few yards from the main road, near enough that he could make it back quickly if the need to grab Maddy and flee arose, but not so close or so exposed that his car was an easy mark for sabotage. He was playing by Burkett’s rules, for the moment, but he wasn’t an idiot.

  The sun had set about a half hour earlier, days growing longer as June and the hot Alabama summer approached. A half-moon gazed down in cool blue dispassion, hidden more often than not by silver-edged storm clouds gathering in the western sky, heavy with the threat of rain. When the moon disappeared, the path ahead grew as dark as a cave, the lights of civilization too distant and few to temper the gloom of nightfall.

  Sam picked his way carefully through the high-growing grass that had once been the mill’s front lawn. Broken liquor bottles and cigarette butts littered the ground beneath his feet, a blighted obstacle course on his path to the mill. He cursed as his foot hit the curve of one bottle, twisting his ankle. He bent to rub the aching joint, taking advantage of the chance to double-check the Glock tucked in the holster tied to his ankle.

  He’d come alone, as Burkett said.

  But he’d also come armed.

  The interior of the mill was even darker than the outside, and smelled of dust and old beer. He pulled a small penlight from his pocket and switched it on. The weak beam illuminated only a few feet ahead of him. He saw the broken hulk of a curved wooden reception desk ahead, tumped onto its side, boards missing and gouges dug out of the wood.

  Sam turned off the light and listened a moment. He knew he might be walking into a trap, but he’d had no choice. He just wished that whatever Burkett had planned for him, he’d get on with it. He was tired of waiting.

  He decided to try the direct approach. “Burkett? Are you here?”

  Silence greeted him, thick and cold.

  He turned on
the penlight again and started a methodical tour of the mill, going from room to room, trying to keep a map of where he’d already been firm in his mind.

  He had reached the main floor of the shop, an enormous area littered with the stripped skeletons of what machinery the mill hadn’t been able to sell when it closed up shop. It looked eerily like an industrial abattoir, strewn with metal limbs torn from their mechanical bodies and electrical wires disemboweled from their metal husks.

  A low hum against his hip made him jerk. He’d left his phone on vibrate in case Burkett had sent him any last-minute text messages, though he’d put all regular calls on automatic forward to his voice mail.

  He pulled the phone from his pocket and flipped it open. The display panel lit up. One text message.

  His heart in his throat, he accessed the message.

  COPS IN WOODS. YOU DIDNT LISTEN.

  Sam stared at the words, his body going cold and shaky. Cops in the woods? Had Hannah broken her promise?

  He weaved through the mill’s maze of hallways and rooms, emerging a few minutes later through the front door and out into the cool evening air. The moon was peeking through the clouds at the moment, shedding pale silver light over the mill and the surrounding woods.

  Sam turned a slow circle, looking for movement in the woods. The woods were usually alive at night, birds and small animals rustling leaves and disturbing the underbrush. But the woods around him seemed unnaturally still, as if the animals were lying low and watchful.

  Aware of human intruders in their habitat, Sam thought, anger pouring into his body, driving out his earlier fear.

  Stealth was pointless now. Burkett was long gone.

  “You scared him off!” he shouted as strongly as he could, wanting to be sure whoever was lurking in the woods heard him loud and clear. “Did you hear me? He spotted you. He’s not coming. I want to talk to whoever sent you out here. Now!”

  There was a long, silent pause, though Sam thought he might have heard a faint burst of static from a radio somewhere in the deep woods. He remained where he was, his heart hammering in his chest, driven by equal parts anger and fear, while his mind raced frantically for some idea what he should do next.

  He prayed for another buzz from his cell phone with another chance to meet Burkett’s demand, but the phone remained stubbornly still. The number Burkett had texted from was blocked from receiving messages. Sam supposed, in time, the police might be able to trace his messages back to their source,

  But he didn’t think Maddy had that much time.

  Headlights sliced through the gloom, headed slowly up the access road. He heard the hum of the engine, the hiss-pop of tires on the gravel surface, and then the car came into full view. It was a Chevrolet Impala, and Sam knew before the car door opened who he’d see.

  But it still hurt like hell when Kristen stepped out and into the headlight beams.

  “You read the text message on my phone,” he said as she closed the distance between them. He was surprised by how betrayed he felt. “You surrounded this place with cops when Burkett said for me to come alone. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

  “Yes,” she said. He heard tears in her voice.

  “He could kill Maddy.”

  Kristen froze a few steps away from him. When she spoke, her voice was broken and raw. “I know.”

  He didn’t know what to say to her now. He didn’t even know what he felt anymore.

  He just knew he couldn’t stay here one minute longer.

  With one last look back at the abandoned mill, he started walking down the road to his car.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Kristen pounded Sam’s front door, sick with regret and fear. “Let me in, Sam!”

  She could feel him on the other side of the door, his anger and his despair, and the knowledge that she was the one who’d done this to him was almost more than she could bear. She’d felt so hopeful just a little while ago, knowing that her fate was in her own hands. But now, every doubt she’d had about taking this case crashed down around her, mingling with her own terror about what might be happening to Maddy right now.

  Blood everywhere. Four little bodies, strewn about the house, lying where Mama had left them…

  She choked back a sob and slid to the porch, what little energy she had left draining from her in a flood of despair.

  She’d done this. Whatever happened to Maddy now, she owned it. She didn’t know how she could live with this one. The pain in her chest felt as if her heart were being shredded apart, strip by strip. She could never piece it back together again.

  Behind her, the door opened. The wooden porch floor creaked as Sam walked onto the porch and stood beside her.

  She couldn’t look up at him. She should never have come here in the first place. Apologies were pointless. What she’d done tonight could never be forgiven.

  Sam crouched down beside her. “You shouldn’t have gone behind my back. I knew what I was doing. If you figured out I was keeping something from you, you should have trusted that I had a good reason.”

  She forced the words from her aching throat. “I didn’t want you to walk into a trap alone.”

  “I know you were trying to protect me.” She felt his hand on her head, his fingers tangling lightly in her hair. “But she’s my daughter. I had the right to take that risk for her.”

  She looked up at him, her heart full of feeling she couldn’t contain. “I love Maddy, too, Sam.”

  A bubble of joy, out of place in the middle of so much fear and dread, caught her by surprise. A watery laugh erupted from her throat as the full weight of emotion crashed over her.

  Sam’s gaze locked with hers, and she saw that he understood her jumble of emotions, maybe more than she understood them herself. He caught her hands in his. Rising, he pulled her to her feet and wrapped his arm around her shoulder, leading her into the house and over to the sofa. He made her sit, pulling a crocheted throw from the back of the sofa and wrapping it around her. Only then did she realize she was shivering.

  “I’m angry with you,” Sam told her, his expression tight.

  “You should be.” Her teeth were chattering a little.

  “You’re not supposed to agree. You’re supposed to argue back.” Sam raked his hand through his hair, his movement rapid and agitated. His voice rose. “You’re supposed to tell me I was a stupid fool to go out there by myself and you’re the cop and you know better. And then I’m supposed to yell at you that you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  She stood up on wobbly knees to face him, understanding. He needed to feel something besides bone-freezing terror. It was the least she could do for him. “He could have been waiting to kill you the minute you walked in that mill, Sam.”

  “With me dead, he’d have no reason to keep holding Maddy.” Sam’s gaze lowered, his voice dropping to a hush, as if confessing something he hadn’t even admitted to himself before now. “Burkett would have no reason to hurt her, because doing so would no longer hurt me.”

  “If he’d killed you, I’d have hunted him down for the rest of my life,” she answered in a tone just as hushed. “I wouldn’t rest until I found him.”

  Sam’s eyes lifted to meet hers. She could see that he understood what she was really admitting. His throat bobbed and he took a hesitant step toward her, his hand outstretched.

  But he stopped, an odd look coming over his face. He reached into his pocket, his face a chaos of emotions, and pulled out his cell phone. Kristen could hear the faint buzz of the vibrating phone now, and her heart froze in place.

  Sam’s shaking fingers punched a couple of buttons. Kristen watched his face grow slack for a second. Then his gaze flew up to meet hers, and she saw the light of hope blazing from his dark blue eyes.

  “He wants to meet again.”

  Kristen didn’t ask where or when. She wasn’t going to ruin things for Sam a second time. “I should leave, then.”

  She started toward the door, but he ca
ught her hand, tugging her back around to face him.

  “No,” he said firmly. “I’m not playing his game his way this time.”

  She frowned, not understanding. “What do you mean?”

  He touched her face with the lightest brush of his fingertips. “This time, Detective, you’re gonna have my back.”

  “I’M NOT SURE HOW HE’S finding all the abandoned buildings in Chickasaw County,” Sam said later as he and Kristen went over the plans. It was almost ten o’clock, a half hour before the next rendezvous with Burkett. Old Saddlecreek Church hadn’t seen a congregation through its doors for six or seven years, according to Kristen, who knew more about the town’s recent history than he did. The congregation had merged with another church closer to town, and attempts to sell the building hadn’t met with much success.

  Kristen had called the pastor of the new church and gotten the phone number of the former pastor at Saddlecreek, figuring that if anyone knew the layout of the building, he’d be the one. She’d gleaned enough information that they now had a rough but workable floor plan for the main sanctuary, where Burkett’s message had directed Sam to come.

  “I’ll have the text message set up to send,” Sam said, programming the message into the phone so that all he’d have to do was punch one button and the message would go to Kristen’s phone. “When you get the message, it will mean I have a visual on Burkett and can distract him while you head into the sanctuary through the back.”

  “I’m going to make my approach on the organ side,” Kristen said, pointing to the organ pit on the right side of the floor plan sketch. “Brother Handley said they were able to sell the piano, but the organ was in such disrepair they haven’t been able to unload it. It’ll give me some cover. Just make sure he’s facing the front of the church.”

  Sam nodded as he put the cell phone back into his pocket. “Ready to go?”

  She looked terrified, but also determined, and if Sam had had any doubts about including her in this plan, that one look would have driven them away. Whatever happened, he knew he’d made the right choice in trusting Kristen.